Count It All Joy The Winans Free Mp3 Download ((BETTER))
Vaun Ousley
Gospel has operated as a separate sphere within the music industry for much of the last half-century; after secular rock stars, especially, absorbed the techniques through which its practitioners conjure deep feelings, those genres turned away from gospel's religious messages, and the music's central role in inventing rock and soul began to be overlooked. With the classic soul revival that gave us Sharon Jones and St. Paul and the Broken Bones in full swing, it's high time for gospel's greats to reassert their power. Working with her son, Alvin Love III, on her forthcoming album Let Them Fall In Love, Winans trades in the adult-oriented R&B sound she's long cultivated for the brass and boogie of Southern soul, country flourishes and choral uplift.
Paul says, Heb. vi. "By faith Abraham when called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive as an inheritance, obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he was going.". Here Paul plainly declares that Abraham was a man of faith and of obedience too, before God made the promise of a numerous seed to him, the belief of which promise was counted to him for righteousness. And Moses says, Gen. xiv. that before God made the promise to Abraham of the numerous seed as the stars of heaven, "that Melchizedek the Priest of the Most High God blessed him." Who would infer from the history of this case, that Abraham was an ungodly sinner, an unpardoned wretch, at the time God made the promise to him. It is calumny to speak thus of the Patriarch; but in this case there was a [270] direct promise of a numerous seed, without any condition on the part of Abraham: "And he said to Abraham, Look now towards heaven, and count the stars if you can number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." Abraham could do nothing more in this case than believe; for without a command, there can be no obedience.
I will now say a few things relative to "charity," the meaning of which is perhaps as much perverted in this our day, as any other expression used by Jesus or his Apostles. It has now assumed the meaning of courtesy, or rather sycophancy. He that says to all the sects in christendom, 'Go on and prosper; you will all reach heaven at last, if you are honest and hold out faithful to the end,' is counted the charitable man in this our day. If ignorance or error will save men, then he may be said to be charitable; but if a strong desire for men's salvation be true charity, and nothing but the belief of truth and the obedience of God will save men, then he is the most uncharitable of men; for when he finds men in ignorance and error, and living in disobedience to God, he tells them to persevere in the road to destruction. If this be charity, then may bitter and sweet be said to mean the same thing.
IN the absence of the Editor, we feel induced, by the above communication, to express a feeling of deep regret, that a reformation, which we humbly suggested, and respectfully submitted to the consideration of the friends and lovers of truth and peace throughout all the churches, more than twenty-five y ears ago, for the express purpose of putting an end to religious controversy among christians, should appear to take the unhappy turn, to which, with painful anxiety, we have seen it verging for the last ten years; namely, to "verbal contentions, from which come envy, strife, evil speakings, unjust suspicions, perverse disputings,--rather than godly edification which is in faith;"--from all which we are divinely admonished to abstain; and "not to fight about words for no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers:--For the servant of the Lord must not be contentious, but gentle towards all men, fit to teach, patiently bearing evil, with meekness instructing those that set themselves in opposition; if, by any means, God may be pleased to grant them reformation, to the acknowledgment of truth." Wherefore, as an alternative for the unhappy contentions and desolating divisions, so inimical to genuine christianity, with which the church had been vexed and torn to pieces for upwards of fifteen centuries, we adventured, as above stated, to adopt for ourselves, and to recommend to our divided brethren, "the rejection of all human opinions and inventions of men, as of any authority, or as having any place in the church of God, that so we might for ever cease from farther contentions about such things;--that, returning to, and holding fast by, the original standard, we should take the divine word alone for our rule,--the Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide to lead us in all divine truth,--and Christ alone, as exhibited in the word, for our salvation; that, by so doing, we might be in peace among, ourselves, follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. And that, for this blissful purpose, we would countenance and support such ministers, and such only, as exhibit a manifest conformity to the original standard of christianity in conversation and doctrine, in zeal and diligence;--only such as reduce to practice that simple original form of christianity expressly exhibited upon the sacred page, without attempting to inculcate any thing of human authority, of private opinion, or inventions of men, as having any place in the constitution, faith, or worship of the christian church,--or any thing as matter of christian faith or duty, for which there cannot be expressly produced a "thus saith the Lord," either in express terms, or by approved scripture precedent." [See Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington, Pa. published 1809, pp. 3, 4.] Having thus advised and resolved, we proceeded, in our subsequent address, earnestly to urge the adoption of the above resolutions, go the only just, relevant, and practicable ground of religious unity, instead of the impossible unity of opinion;--endeavoring to evince, beyond the possibility of rational objection, the abundant and alone sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, to answer every purpose of our holy religion for the conversion and salvation of the world. In the execution of this design, we are happy to say, we so far succeeded as to obviate any attempt, on the part of our reluctant and uncompromising brethren, to exhibit a formal refutation of our overture, or of the truth, and relevancy of the arguments adduced to sustain and enforce it. And had the advocates of the proposed reformation continued to sustain and enforce it, as, in the document referred to, we are constrained to believe, that the sectarian, popular objections which have been brought against it, and with which its progress, has been unhappily embarrassed, could never have been advanced by any, who acknowledge the all-sufficiency, and alone sufficiency, of the belief and obedience of the Holy Scriptures, in their obvious [272] grammatic sense, for the salvation of sinners; for the perfect edification of the christian church, independent of all human opinions and inventions of men. And here let it be noted, that we make no larger demand in behalf of the Holy Scriptures, than they expressly and explicitly claim; see Psalm xix. 7, 11, and 2 Tim. iii. 14--17, with many other places to the same purpose. So that to deny our assumption of the alleged sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, is to file off into the ranks of open and avowed infidelity.